2011 Fall Department News

On November 4, 2011, LPL hosted a celebration of a life well lived, to honor the life and career of Michael J. Drake. Approximately 250 colleagues and friends attended. The event was streamed live by Arizona Public Media.

Tim Swindle, acting department head and director, hosted the program. Speakers included

On September 16, 2011, LPL hosted a celebration of the life of Professor Tom Gehrels. About 180 guests---family, friends, and colleagues---came together to share their memories of Tom. The celebration began with a joyful and exhilarating fly-by of four Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) F16s. The RNLAF fly-by was performed

PTYS/LPL Professor William Hubbard, co-investigator on NASA's Juno mission, was present at Cape Canaveral on August 5, 2011, to watch a successful spacecraft launch to Jupiter.

In advance of the launch, Bill Hubbard described Juno and her mission to Jupiter on Arizona Public Media.

Kudos to undergraduate student Lujendra Ojha, who was chosen to display his research at the April 2011 Posters on the Hill event at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. "Posters on the Hill" is sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research. Luju's poster was titled "Transient Slope

The major theme of our trip this semester was the effect of water on the geologic record. Water affects the character of volcanic eruptions as well as depositing material that later becomes part of the rock record. Water creates canyons by eroding downward through rock, but also sometimes by flowing

Professor Alfred McEwen's HiRISE science team was awarded a NASA Group Achievement Award. The award was presented at JPL on July 19.

A well-deserved honor...congratulations to the HiRISE team!

Jay Melosh forwarded notice that his long-anticipated textbook, Planetary Surface Processes, has been published by Cambridge University Press.

Jay writes, "As many of you know, I have been talking about writing up the content of my Surfaces class for years (a decade?) and, with a long hard push to finish

On October 22, 2011, the exhibit titled "Mars and Beyond: The search for life on other planets" debuted as the first offering of Science Downtown, a nonprofit organization that has taken up residence in the Rialto Block exhibition hall in downtown Tucson. The exhibit features the science of several LPL research

On May 4, 2011, two new U.S. postage stamps commemorating 50 years of manned space flight were unveiled during a special event hosted by the Postal History Foundation, 920 N. First Ave. in Tucson.

The special ceremony was highlighted by remarks from Dr. Ann Sprague, a University of Arizona research

Elisabetta Rigliaco joined LPL in September as a post-doctoral researcher with Assistant Professor Ilaria Pascucci. Elisabetta received her Ph.D. at the University of Florence with a thesis on studies of accretion in young stars. Elisabetta's work at LPL will focus on characterizing the dispersal of protoplanetary disks and their evolution